Chess rating system

everyone starts out with a rating and a variable that determines how accurate your rating is. if you haven't played any games, then that variable is HUGE and allows your rating to swing more aggressively. but if you have played 1,000 games all very recently, then you have a low variable, so your rating will move more slowly. also, your opponent's variable matters. if they have a very loose variable, your rating will move less than if they have a tight variable.

:)

Thanks, your answer helped out alot. I know what my approximate rating should be...so when it jumped after two games I felt a little guilty, especially considering the caliber of the players I was playing at the time.

mate just play your best chess and learn from your mistakes and let the rating worry about its self. Ratings are a guide not an excact science as far as im concened so dont worry about it to much just play and have fun.....

From the article: "If the player is unrated, set the rating to 1500 and the RD to 350."

The average is 1500, not 1200. However, chess sites that set unrated players at 1500 tend to find themselves with grossly inflated ratings. Those that set initial ratings at 1200 more often achieve the 1500 average.

Well when it comes to time in a sit down game with someone in front of you its alot more important then time on an online chess game. I recently lost a game where I had a 24 hours clock, not because I didnt know what my next move would be or because I sat there and stared at the screen for 24 hours, but because chess.com went down for one hour at the time I would've made my play and I didnt stay up to wait for it to come back online. The next day I left the house early and stayed out all day, by the time I got home my clock was gone. If this was a sit down game I'd understand time negatively affecting me, but in a game that I fit in between the other things in my life, time could have a serious affect in your rating when it shouldnt.

Time can be an issue even in long games, depending on the players. As for how important ratings are, they are used to determine match up's in tournaments, so you will play people around your skill level in the first few rounds. It keeps things fair; without it a strong player could get easy wins while another strong player has to fight for their wins. They would each have the same score but one would have had to work far more for their's. Hence the rating system.

AlecKeen wrote:Becca wrote:Rating has its place but its not the most important thing. Sometimes you can lose a game on time and it will seriously affect your rating this has nothing to do with how well you play.

Oh yes it does! How well you play includes how well you manage your time. Time is as much part of Chess as it is in other games. In football you could score the greatest goal in history, but if the referee blows time before it goes in it doesn't count. Similarly in Chess if you don't get your moves in within the time, you lose, and correctly so.